Tuesday, March 17, 2009

8 pm - 8:30 am

That is how long Lil' Sis slept last night. Straight. Without waking up. I'm amazed. And I fell asleep at 10:30 last night so for the first time in MONTHS I feel actually RESTED. Awesome.

But lest you think she did this all on her own she did not. I am not a fan of letting babies cry themselves to sleep. If anybody tells me they let their 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 month old cry themselves to sleep I cringe. I feel sad for those poor babies.

However my baby will be one in less than two weeks. She goes to sleep fantastically. Lay her down wide awake and she's out in less than a few minutes. It was the continual waking sometimes more than 2 times a night that I couldn't handle any longer. And as the saying goes in sleep training or night nursing, "If you start to resent it, change it." (Or something like that)

The only thing to get her back to sleep was to nurse. So last week I decided enough was enough. When she awoke in the middle of the night I would go in her "room" (our closet), pat her back, give her her binky and let her know that all was OK but that I was not going to feed her anymore (just at night of course!) I didn't pick her up either. I would leave the room, shut the door and that was that. If she fell back asleep and then awoke crying again I would repeat the process.

It made her angry. Like really, REALLY angry. She screamed bloody murder for a few minutes then it would die down to whimpers and whining for who knows how long after that. I went back to sleep!

It worked. For now. It took about 4 days..er..nights. And you know what? She still woke up every morning with a huge grin on her face. No recollection of mommy ticking her off.

So here's to more nights of being able to sleep 7 hours consecutively! Cheers!

I am totally going to try this on my 5 month old. She woke me up like 3 times last night and I just fed her cause it was easier. She's gone all night (Well, like 11-6am) without eating, but she's sooo not consistent. I'm going to bite the bullet and sacrifice a few nights sleep for the "greater good". But I agree with not letting them cry themselves to sleep, it's just painful to listen to!